


Pheasant Roast

by lusteralliance (orphan_account)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Cooking, F/M, Fluff, all you hetties out there...this one's for you, ashette is SO CUTE, dsfhdsh this is my first f/m fe fic tho, hope i can watch their supports when i get back home u-u, hope its good, i had to ask about their favorite foods on discord, me talking before singing an emotional song before a concert:, they have so many in common its adorable aa, wait of course what, were ovens invented yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 00:54:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20322406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/lusteralliance
Summary: Annette made another mess in the kitchen tonight. While the others laugh about it behind her back, Ashe decides to try and help her feel better.





	Pheasant Roast

**Author's Note:**

> ashe is baby. annette is baby. together they are: baby

"And then there was beef stew _everywhere!_"

Sylvain doubled over laughing, and a few others did too as they sat around their table in the dining hall. Dimitri chuckled, then suddenly looked horrified at himself; Felix just ate his food, but with a slight smirk; Ingrid hid her face as she laughed over her plate, and even Mercedes simpered a little into her hand. The only ones who were unamused were Dedue and Ashe.

Dedue wasn't ever amused, so he didn't exactly count. But Ashe felt awful; the others were poking fun at Annette's latest kitchen disaster behind her back. They didn't know where she was, but Ashe did; he had passed her in the hall running away to her dorm, crying and covered in stew.

"Hey...maybe we shouldn't be so mean to Annette," Ashe piped up shyly. Dimitri turned and nodded his head, even though he had laughed a little at Sylvain's story.

"Ashe is right. We shouldn't make fun of our fellow classmate, especially not behind her back," added the prince. Ingrid sulked, but she nodded in agreement to Dimitri's words. "Accidents happen."

"Yeah, huh?" Sylvain snickered, and he elbowed Felix's arm. Felix smacked him in the face, and everyone got up to try and stop the ensuing fight. As for Ashe, he slipped out in the commotion and headed to the kitchen. If he couldn't help Annette, then he could at least try to help her clean up her mess.

It smelled of stew when he pushed through the door. Not the usual kind the cook made, but the kind Annette made; it had a signature tang to the smell, something Ashe learned to recognize during mealtime when Annette was on cooking duty.

He peeked over a stack of boxes by the door and spotted the catastrophe Sylvain had described at dinner: dark, creamy stew in every nook and cranny, dripping off every surface, making sad brown puddles with chunks of beef and garnish on the floor. On the stove was an overturned pot, in which was, to Ashe's surprise, no stew.

Ashe grimaced and crawled over the boxes, wishing he could salvage just a bowl of Annette's hard work so it didn't all have to go to waste.

He was scrubbing at the ground, humming to himself, when the kitchen door opened behind him. Ashe looked up and saw Annette peek inside, her blue eyes wide and puffy from tears.

"Hi, Annette—"

"Eep!" Annette squeaked, disappearing with a whisk of her orange hair. Ashe blinked in surprise, then continued his work. It took all of his willpower not to taste a little of Annette's dinner—the kitchen floor was filthy with neglect, but the creamy stew looked so appetizing.

The door opened again. "Um...Ashe?"

Ashe looked up once more at Annette's small voice. "Oh, hey—" He flinched when a drop of saliva fell on his hand, and he scrambled to wipe his face when he realized his mouth had been watering from the delicious smell.

Annette shrieked and disappeared again, and Ashe personally wanted to curl up in a ball and die. Instead, he kept cleaning, swallowing every minute or so just in case.

"...Ashe...?"

Ashe glanced back at the door nervously, on his knees by the stove with a dirty rag in his hand. Annette glanced around, then tiptoed in sheepishly.

"Sorry I, um...sorry I drooled," Ashe whispered awkwardly. "It smelled so good." Annette sat down by him, biting her thumb.

"It did? I thought it would be awful...what a mess...and now you're cleaning it up!" Annette sounded very distressed, and she hurried to the sink to find a cloth of her own to help.

"No, no! I'd have been super excited if I got to eat this." Ashe patted a pool of cold stew next to him sadly. "It's a shame it didn't...work out."

"Sorry," Annette mumbled, embarrassed.

"Don't be!" Ash insisted as his classmate huddled in the corner, scrubbing away at the dusty, stew-soaked floor. "It's not your fault. We all make mistakes."

Annette smiled a little, blushing, and breathed a soft "thank you" before continuing her work.

"...Hey, Annette," Ashe murmured after a while. Annette looked at him from where she was wringing her cloth into the sink.

"Mm-hmm?"

"I think you should know...Sylvain and the others, they—" Ashe bit his lip. What was he thinking! In what world would Annette need to know she was being made fun of?

"Um...they really missed your stew tonight."

Annette's blue eyes shone, and she hopped up and down excitedly. "Really?"

Ashe felt even worse now. At least _he_ missed Annette's stew. Dedue didn't laugh with the others, so maybe he'd have liked some, too. Dimitri was happy with everyone's cooking, which might be a problem. Mercedes adored Annette for everything she was, so of course she'd like her stew! Felix's culinary preferences Ashe didn't know much about, but he never complained when Annette cooked. Ingrid didn't like stew much, but that didn't have anything to do with Annette. As for Sylvain, Ashe realized he had only been poking fun at the mess she made. He hadn't said a thing about how her cooking tasted.

Ashe came to the happy conclusion that, yes, everyone _did_ miss Annette's cooking. He nodded and smiled.

"Yeah! We had the driest fish saute today...ugh. I could totally have used some of your stew."

Annette pouted with determination, clasping her hands under her chin. "Let's make something better!" Ashe grinned and nodded.

"Okay! Like what?"

"Let's finish cleaning first."

"Oh, right."

Ashe and Annette scrubbed the floor and counter-tops and appliances clean, and Ashe then accompanied Annette to the library to find her favorite recipe book.

Annette was humming and skipping as she looked through the shelves, and Ashe didn't have the heart to shush her, so the librarian did instead. After a bit of searching, she pointed to a dark maroon book on a shelf over her head.

"There! Aw, someone taller than me must've used it..." Annette jumped up and down as she tried to reach it, and still struggled when she stood on a stool. "Ashe, can you get it?"

Ashe climbed onto the stool and stood on tip-toe, but he couldn't reach it, either. He was about the same height as Annette, anyway. He looked around when he was back on the floor, hoping to find someone who could help, when he saw in the corner of his eye a flash of black and orange. Annette had leaped to reach her book.

"Annette!" Ashe whisper-screamed, and Annette wrenched her book out of the shelf and landed on the edge of the stool. It toppled underneath her, and Ashe scrambled to catch her. He remembered too late that he wasn't very strong, and they both crumpled to the ground, Annette lying spread-eagle on Ashe's flattened form.

"I got it," Annette announced in a breathless whisper. Ashe groaned (quietly) and accepted her helping hand, then let her lead him to the kitchen.

Annette hummed happily as she flipped through the yellowed pages, sitting on the chair by the pantry. She found one she liked and tapped Ashe's shoulder. The boy was kneading his arm, on which he had fallen while trying to catch Annette.

"Here, how does this sound? Pheasant roast with berry sauce."

Ashe gasped. "That's my favorite!" Annette flushed happily.

"Me too! Let's do it!"

Ashe found the skillet Annette requested and fiddled with the oven, then collected the appliances she needed and laid them out on the counter and brought bowls for garnish and sauce.

He had no idea what was going on, but it made him smile to see Annette so happy as she danced around the kitchen, singing into spatulas and even giving him a chance to shine. When the girl laughed at his terrible singing voice, Ashe wasn't surprised to find that he didn't feel hurt at all. In fact, it made him want to sing more.

Ashe and Annette foraged through the pantry and found everything they needed, except one crucial ingredient. Ashe stared at the lone chicken in the poultry bin as Annette slumped to the ground in defeat.

"We don't have a pheasant...."

They stared blankly at their bowls of fresh raspberries and mulberries and cranberries, and their bottles of cooking liquor and olive oil, and the empty plate laid out to hold their absent pheasant.

Annette sniffled a little, and Ashe narrowed his eyes in determination.

"I'll find one."

Annette turned to look at him, her teary blue eyes wide. "Wh—what?"

Ashe got to his feet and raced out of the kitchen, Annette calling after him before the door swung shut.

The dining hall was still bustling with students, which was good. No one should notice Ashe slipping out to the woods. He knew pheasants lived in the deeper pockets of forest, though they were rare. If he squinted hard enough, he could see Sylvain and Felix sitting on opposite sides of his class's table. Clearly, the fight did not end well, as Sylvain's right eyelid was swollen and a bit blue, and Felix's cheek was bruised. They both looked quite grumpy.

Ashe snuck down the hall and spotted the main entrance, and he took a deep breath and raced for it. He jerked backwards at the column he had been hiding behind when someone grabbed his hood and pulled him back.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Ashe flinched and turned to gape up at Shamir, her dark violet eyes narrowed as she held onto his blue hood. He gulped.

"Students aren't allowed outside the monastery after dinnertime. You know this, don't you?"

"Um...yes...I just..." Ashe twiddled his thumbs. "...Annette and I are making pheasant roast...and we don't have the pheasant. I was hoping I could find one in the forest and bring it back to her."

Shamir let go of his hood, sighing. 

"I won't be allowing that, sorry." Ashe's heart sank. How was he supposed to return to the kitchen empty handed, especially after such a dramatic exit? Annette would be destroyed.

Shamir lifted a finger. "However." Ashe blinked and looked back up at her. The instructor placed her hand on her quiver. "I can bring a pheasant back for you. I saw Annette crying earlier today. You be sure not to break her heart, you hear?"

Ashe nodded vigorously. "Yes, I won't. Thank you, Shamir!" Shamir shushed him and disappeared out of the main entrance, nodding to the gatekeeper Ashe surely would've gotten caught by.

After what felt like minutes, Shamir reentered the gate. Ashe peeked out and gasped when he saw the young pheasant she held by the neck as she walked. Plunged through its chest was a standard steel arrow; Ashe was surprised, since Shamir's trademark was one fashioned out of black wood and silver.

"Whoa...! Thank you so much!" Shamir tossed the game to Ashe, grimacing at the trail of blood the pheasant left behind in the empty grand hall.

"Don't tell anyone or I'm getting fired and you're getting expelled. By me, before I'm fired." Shamir reached into her evergreen jacket and took out some vibrant sunny marigolds.

"Ooh! Those are good for sauce," Ashe gasped, remembering the side note on Annette's recipe book for a different dish. "Can I have them?"

"Oh. I was going to tell you to give them to Annette." Shamir handed the flowers to Ashe, who held onto them with two fingers. The rest of them were occupied by the pheasant. "Ladies like flowers."

"Thank you, Shamir!"

"Go get 'er."

Ashe didn't know what that meant, but he hurried away to the kitchen nevertheless. Maybe the pheasant was female.

Annette was mashing the berries when Ashe burst in, thanking the goddess the pheasant hadn't bled in the hall and that no one saw him running with a giant dead bird and some flowers in his arms.

Annette's blue eyes widened with delight when Ashe placed the pheasant in the sink and started tugging the arrow out of its body. "Whoa...Ashe, you're amazing...!"

Ashe blushed a little, about to tell her it was Shamir, but he remembered that Shamir had purposefully used a standard arrow instead of her usual type. Probably so Annette would think Ashe caught it and praise him! He sighed with admiration. Shamir sure knew how to sway a lady.

"Oh, it...it was nothing." Ashe smiled at Annette, who smiled back. Then, the boy flinched and handed over the marigolds. "Um...here! They're for you."

Annette gasped, and her cheeks went rosy as she took them up in her fingers. She smelled them and grinned sillily, then pecked Ashe on the cheek.

"Thanks, Ashe."

Ashe felt giddy. Maybe he "got 'er" like Shamir told him to.

To Ashe's amazement, he and Annette completed a beautiful platter of garnished and roasted pheasant meat drizzled with a sweet mixed-berry sauce in under two hours. It smelled so good. Ashe didn't mind when Annette used a few of the marigolds in the sauce.

"We did it!" Annette puffed, wiping her forehead with her sleeve. Ashe did the same, not realizing how hot it had gotten in the kitchen now after so long.

"Wait!" He found the last couple marigolds and pinched off the blossoms, then placed them over the glazed pheasant and tucked some leaves underneath. "Perfect."

Annette clapped her hands happily. She dipped her little finger into the sauce to taste, and her pretty blue eyes lit up with joy.

"It's so good!" Ashe's fingers were filthy, so he hurriedly washed his hands and raced back to try some for himself. To his surprise, Annette had dipped her other pinky in the sauce and had it held out for him to try, a shy smile gracing her cute face.

"Oh! Thanks..." Ashe tasted the sauce, then smiled brightly at the wonderful flavor. It even had Annette's signature tangy fragrance. "It's amazing! You're incredible, Annette." Annette blushed and hid her face in embarrassment. "Come on, let's bring this to the dining hall!"

Ashe and Annette balanced the platter between them so it wouldn't drop, and Shamir held the door to the dining hall open for them as she passed. She winked at Ashe with the hint of a smile on her often solemn face.

Ingrid was giving Sylvain a lecture as everyone else looked on when Ashe and Annette arrived. Dimitri spotted them first, and he waved and smiled.

"Whoa there! What's that?"

"Pheasant roast!" The two chefs of the night announced in unison. They glanced at each other when they did, then looked away, blushing just a little. Ingrid let go of Sylvian's ear, and Mercedes gasped in delight.

"It looks amazing, Ann!"

"Wow, it smells delicious!"

"Is that a flower?"

"It's beautiful, Annette!"

"Well done, Annette."

Annette flushed happily and turned to Ashe, who was already looking at her. He smiled and bumped her shoulder with his own.

"Way to go, Annette!"


End file.
